10 Reasons for Developers to Love HP webOS

May 11, 2011 8:20 pm

There comes a time in a Linux-loving geek’s life when he or she needs a new challenge. Making desktop apps isn’t hacking it anymore and building yet-another-website seems passe. If you want to jump into the world of mobile, here are a few reasons why HP webOS is the platform for you.

1: It’s free – There’s no cost to become a developer. You don’t have to pay any sort of fee to download the SDK or submit apps. The webOS emulator is free and our tools support development on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. We also have discount programs to help developers to get their hands on real devices.

2: We give you full access to your device – You don’t have to jailbreak or root your device.What other platforms call jailbreaking or rooting, we call entering developer mode. We don’t make you jump through hoops, purchase device certificates. or use questionable tools; instead, we provide simple shortcuts from our launcher and phone apps. Just tap on the “Just Type” search bar and enter “upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart” (the classic NES Konami code!); an icon appears that lets you toggle this mode on and off. In developer mode, you can get full access to the device over your USB cable.

3: It’s Linux – Once you’re in dev mode, it’s just Linux and WebKit. You can get a fairly functional shell on the device by using the command “novaterm” on Mac/Linux or by using “pdk-device-install” and PuTTY on Windows. We have many of the essential Linux commands available, tools like cp, vi, grep, find, diff, top, tar, and gzip, making it easy to find your way around the system. We include scripts in our SDK to sideload ssh and gdb. Continue reading…